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Initial commit: HPR Knowledge Base MCP Server

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- MCP server with stdio transport for local use
- Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series
- 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts
- Data loader with in-memory JSON storage

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Episode: 494
Title: HPR0494: Klaatu interviews Russ from Linux in the Ham Shack
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0494/hpr0494.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 21:44:30
---
I'm about to talk to Russ from the Linux ham shack.
Russ, how long have you been into ham radio stuff?
I've been into ham radio for 17 years now.
I started studying for my test in 1992 and got my first ham license as a tech plus in 1993.
Who are you trying to kid?
Is that ham radio really relevant anymore?
What's so cool about it?
Ham radio is very relevant these days.
All you have to do is look at stories about natural disasters, particularly Katrina and other hurricanes, especially the big ones.
Amateur radio operators are called upon all the time when normal communication modes go out.
So it's extraordinarily relevant and of course ham operators are now making themselves even more relevant by incorporating digital and voice over IP technologies into the hobby and into their community efforts.
So always trying to keep up with the times.
Very cool and actually that does lead into my next question which is what was the Linux and ham connections.
So how do you use Linux and ham together?
Some of the ways we talk about which are some of the ways that I use it and some of the ways I don't.
But many of the things we mention are using Linux and open source applications in particular for read control, which is you have an interface cable with your ham radio gear.
It allows you to do actual control, see transmissions and receive information, store memories, copy data to and from radios.
They also allow you to send and receive encode and decode digital transmissions, everything from our TTY to phase shift keying, to slow scan television, to all of the other digital modes that are popular in amateur radio.
And then there are new things that are coming out like DSTAR which is a slow speed digital communication method for VHF and UHF users.
There's also echo link which incorporates voice over IP technology as I already mentioned, which allows people with technician and low class licenses to speak worldwide even though they don't have privileges on amateur radio frequencies which allow antenna to antenna or wireless communication around the world.
Wow, that is really cool, especially that last one. It's kind of like the voice of the people being broadcast on sort of an unregulated, well it's kind of regulated, right?
Well, it's actually pretty well regulated. It's what we call self-regulated, you do have to test, you do have to obtain a license in order to legally transmit on the amateur radio frequencies.
There are policing bodies, the FCC does get involved where necessary, their organizations like the amateur radio relay league which step in where necessary, but for the most part amateur radio frequencies are largely policed by the ham radio population at large.
Okay, well that's interesting. So what, maybe you're not allowed to say maybe this is like secret, maybe I have to get into the ham radio scene to find this out, but like what goes on on ham radio frequencies?
A lot of the times there are people who are just sitting around talking, it's basically like IRC but over radio frequencies. That's probably the biggest thing that happens.
Another thing that people like a lot is contesting, which is basically just getting on a frequency or getting on multiple frequencies and trying to contact as many people as you can in the shorter time as possible.
Sometimes it depends on, sometimes they limit things to like what modes you can use, what frequencies you can be on, so on and so forth, and you try and see how well you can do.
Contesting is popular with some people, it's not one of my favorite things. The general, what they call rag chew, just sit around talking, shoot the bowl, IRC, method is the way it is, and then of course there's the emergency communication.
There are things called aries nets and racies nets, which are all about passing traffic and communications during times of hardship when there are no other methods available.
There is what's called field day, which is an annual contest event. It's celebrated if you want to call it that worldwide and you can, some stations will get thousands and thousands of contacts over a 24 hour period.
And then there is things like sky warring, weather spotters, use amateur radio to communicate disaster conditions, bad weather, anything abnormal basically that affects the community at large.
That's traditionally how it's been used. So those are the major ways that I can think of.
And in terms of, I mean, I have this radio that I got, it's like an emergency radio, it's got a little flashlight and it's wind up and it's world banned.
Is that going to pick up like what you're like these frequencies, or do I need to be a ham radio operator to hear what's going on?
No, typically a world band receiver operates between 30 kilohertz and 30 megahertz, and if you can receive all of the frequencies in between there, then many of the amateur radio bands are included.
So if you know where they are, some of them are in the three megahertz range, some in the seven, and they're scattered throughout that 30 megahertz to 30 kilohertz range.
But if you have a worldwide receiver, or what's called a shortwave in common parlance, then yes, you'll be able to receive amateur radio signals and no you don't have a license to receive just to transmit.
Okay, cool. In order to set up a ham radio and Linux rig, obviously I need all the ham equipment, but in terms of like the Linux part of it, do I need like a specialized kernel, or they're a driver package I can download?
There actually is a driver package you can download. It's called the ham library ham lib. It's in some of the repositories.
It's in all of the Debian-based repositories that I'm aware of. I believe recent versions of OpenSusa have included it again, things like Fedora Core probably Fedora have it.
You can of course download this source, it's all GPL, and build it yourself if necessary. And then the applications are written in a variety of formats. There are some that are written in Python, there are some GTK, there are some, you know, whatever.
But the ham library part is just to interface with your ham gear, and then applications written in other languages use that library to do to put their layer over the top of the ham library.
So if you want to use something that controls an Icom radio, you use ham library support for Icom, and then run the GTK application on top, which will actually do the actual control I use, tweak the knobs, see they're receiving the cater and all that kind of thing.
There's stuff to record the stream as well, or you can record the stream with any kind of sound application because most of the rig interfaces involve some kind of data communication cable that actually allows you to do the control of the device, and then it's just a typical analog audio interface that uses either a sound card or a USB sound device for the audio portion.
So recording the signal, whether it be a digital signal or an analog signal is just done with a regular audio application.
What is the support for ham on other platforms like Windows or Mac or BSD or whatever you know about or don't know them?
Most people would tell you that Windows is probably the best way to get application support for amateur radio because a lot of people who are amateur radio developers develop for it.
But I think that's switching now. Some of the primary applications that are being used for amateur radio like ham radio deluxe are written only for Windows, but they're starting to release the source code because a lot of it is GPL underneath, even though it was written for Windows.
So those kind of things are merging over into the open source world, and now there are lots of developers who are trying to compete with ham radio deluxe by developing pieces of that software in individual products, specifically GPL and specifically open source.
So I would say that Linux support for ham radio gear and for ham radio applications is really coming up and the Windows side of it is waning.
As far as macOS, anything that runs under Linux, you can probably use, and I would say the same for free BSD and may require a little source code tweaking or whatever, but it should still be applicable.
Cool, okay. I know where I've heard your voice. You've got a podcast, don't you?
I do have a podcast, yes. Podcast is called Linux in the ham shack. I do it with a friend of mine who's Richard, another ham KB5JBV. My call happens to be K5TUX. For obvious reasons, I actually spent the extra money and got the vanity call sign, but that's fun.
So Linux in the ham shack is what it is. We do a live video feed every other Tuesday night, and then we release that feed as an edited audio podcast on the off weeks.
And we have a website, and you can find out all of the information all about our video stream and our live unedited stream via icecast at LHSinfo.org.
Cool, sounds great. I will check it out.
Thank you for listening to Haftler Public Radio. HPR is sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to CARO.NC for all of us need.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for watching.